


It's About a Time When You Cross the Line

by Tealot



Category: Boondock Saints, Norman Reedus - Fandom, Walking Dead
Genre: Emotional Hurt, Family, Other, RPF Boondock Saints, RPF Norman Reedus, RPF Walking Dead, You Decide, no names, sadness for the sake of it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-22
Updated: 2016-01-22
Packaged: 2018-05-15 10:28:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5782822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tealot/pseuds/Tealot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dark thoughts in a cold room. You decide who's thinking and who they're thinking about.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's About a Time When You Cross the Line

"When did you start losing respect for him?"

The answer..."I don't know, really." rose up on its own, so automatic that he might have even believed it in the moment it left his lips...though by the time it reached her ears he knew it for the lie it was.

He knew exactly when it had happened, and it hadn't been slow or gradual at all. He knew the exact moment a lifetime of affection and admiration had turned to this depressing, crushing disdain.

It had been on that last of his increasingly infrequent visits...anticipated, longed for eagerly awaited, too few and far between though that alone hadn't touched the way he felt, not at all.

No, he understood the infrequency, he understood the cancellations, the missed opportunities, of course he did...and he did, he really did...it hadn't been that.

It had been what had happened once he'd finally nailed a visit down and was there, right there, ready for...what?

What HAD he expected?

Now that he thought about it it seemed painfully naive to have expected anything less.

He'd arrived. And that had been fine.

But he'd awakened in the morning alone....to a note.

He'd gone to work. 

Ah well, of course. There was no getting around that, but attached to the note had been his whole weeks schedule, his off times....mornings, evenings, whole days....highlighted, starred, celebrated in that loud, bright, giddy way he always did things....their times. 

He'd drawn little pictures of bikes, of beaches, of trails, of crowds...things they'd do.

So that'd been fine. That'd been great. He'd hung around the house, the yard, the lake...a wary eye always attuned to the road and the woods....because there were people, were'nt there. Yeah...there were. Always. 

He'd walked down the road to the place they'd stayed last summer, knocked on Irenes door, sat on the porch with her...glad to see him as always and he'd known she would be...drinking sweet tea and bitching together about the people...the people.

He'd made sure he was home on time....not that it mattered because HE hadn't been, and when he finally did show up he was beat up, bruised, bleeding and exhausted. Not that he'd begged off anything, he'd been cheerful enough, snagged a beer and hollered something about a shower as he peeled off his boots and sat back.....

He'd fallen asleep halfway through the beer and right in the middle of a sentence, and he'd been kind of affectionately amused, if not a little concerned, and after half an hour or so of watching him he'd gone to the kitchen, found a soft washcloth, filled a bowl with warm water, and begun washing some of the grime and blood off his hands...surprised at how long it took to wake him, smiling a little at the sleepy "What're you doing?" that he didn't even have a chance to answer before the words threatened to turn into snores again and he found himself gently shoved aside, feet hitting the floor inches from his head.

"Don't do that, I'm gonna take a shower and we'll get outta here."

The shower had happened but nothing else...he'd fallen asleep still wrapped in a towel.

Ah well....if he was that tired he was that tired. 

It was fine.

It was still fine the next day. And the next....though by that time he'd begun to wonder why he was there. 

It hadn't stopped being fine till the day off...he'd woken up excited, knowing they were both there and they were going....nowhere. He'd found the note next to the coffee maker. He'd had to go in for a meeting but he'd be back by ten. 

Bummer but ok..sort of.

Then ten had come and gone and the text had come. He was trapped with suits, he'd be back as soon as he could get away.

Noon had bled into afternoon had bled into evening and he'd finally come back... drunk and sick and pissed off and he'd headed straight to the bathroom and thrown up a few hours worth of lunch and dinner martinis and passed out. 

He'd hauled himself up later, true, and piled them both onto the bike and they'd been out until sunrise and it'd been amazing...they'd gone to the stables and sweet talked Lorene into letting the take out two horses, finally tiring of the slow pace and trading in the horses for the bike and just flying....  
They'd tumbled into their respective beds after the sun had come up, and he'd been surprised...and a little touched, a little amused...at the rough hug and kiss on the head he'd gotten....that hadn't happened since he'd been little..both of them excited at the prospect of another whole day ahead of them.

It'd been good...that whole day. Exactly what about it had been so good he didn't exactly know, just that it had...and though work would intrude the following day it was only a few hours and then done.

He hadn't been upset when he woke up alone...he'd known he would, but he knew he'd be back before lunchtime...and he had been.

But.

Not the way they'd thought, and it was at that moment, he knew, he'd just given up, the cumulative irritation, annoyance and disappointment he'd never even recognized raging to the forefront and replacing respect with disgust.

That moment he'd come home...not on his bike, the way he'd left, but with Nick, and at first he'd been worried because Nick had come to get him, pulling him aside and telling him something about bad news, and take care of him, look out for him, be there....

And he'd been worried, scared, because when he went out to the car he'd just been sitting there....blank.  
Bloodshot and tear swollen, he wasn't crying anymore, though it was obvious he had been. No, he was dead eyed and silent, refusing to speak, to acknowledge anyone, to even get out of the car, and he hadn't been mad then,, not yet..he'd been scared.

Concerned.

Nick had had to pull him out of the car and steer him into the house. He'd just dropped onto the sofa, staring....refusing to respond in any way and Nick had finally made him get up and walked him into his bedroom and put him to bed.

He hadn't slept but he wouldn't speak, wouldn't get up except to run for the bathroom to vomit, and that alone told him that whatever it was it was REALLY bad....

He still didnt know what it had been because he wouldn't tell him.

Had snapped at him to leave him alone.

Had even flashed out a hand to hit him, once, when he'd dared to shake him and shout at him to please just TALK to him...

He'd never tried to hit him before, and though he'd failed to connect this time it didn't negate the fact that he'd tried.

Never had, always said he never would....and he didn't apologize either, just muttered something about leaving him alone.

He'd finally gone to sleep though not on his own. No, he'd downed a few xanax and passed out without a word, and when morning came he'd simply downed a few more and gone back to sleep.  
He'd spent the rest of the visit refusing to have anything to do with him...and when the time came for him to leave he'd called him a cab....hadn't even driven him to the airport...and sent him on his way with the most cursory of goodbyes.  
Of his pleas to please, please just TALK to him, just TELL him, just please let him HELP, he'd laughed...and not pleasant laughter but bitter and derisive, once barking out "Oh what the fuck is it you think YOU can do, huh? I don't know why any of you think it's your business."

As if he were nobody. As if he hadn't known him every second of his existence. As if he didn't even like him. As if he were one of THEM, those multitudes who wanted to know everything and deserved nothing.

That had been it. The moment he'd lost every ounce of respect, every whisper of admiration.  
Because if he'd lost touch to the point that he could consider HIM one of THEM....well.

Of course he'd realized, later, what he'd done, and he'd called....and then gotten on a plane and come home and done everything he possibly could to apologize, to take it back....everything except the one thing that might have helped, that being to remember that he could trust him with everything up to and including his LIFE and just tell him what was WRONG.

Not that. No.

And that'd been it. 

All he could see now was everything that was wrong, every slight, every second of neglect, every broken promise, every excuse, every lame attempt to fix it all...lame because his heart never really seemed to be in it.

When he'd realized, later on, that it wasn't just him...that suddenly there was nobody he trusted anymore, nobody he took into his confidence....family be damned, blood nothing but blood...that he considered everyone THEM and there was no US, he felt a moment of compassion...a breath of empathy...but it rode out in one quick exhalation, replaced with disgust.

If he didn't know better than that then let him go on ahead and turn to booze and pills and shrinks and "objective third parties" whatever the fuck that meant. 

Let him do it.

When had he lost respect? They'd lost it together and the truth was, while he could pinpoint the moment, he still didn't know the reason. What had taken him out of that elite inner circle of the loved, and shoved him out into the cold with everyone else.

He looked up at her, thought about it for a minute, told her....expecting matching indignation and sympathy for him....

Surprised when she frowned at him and shook her head, taking his face in her hands and forcing him to look at her.

"Don't you see how wrong you are?"

"About what."

"About what he's done."

"How'm I wrong?"

She'd told him. She'd told him as clear and cold as crystal, and he'd understood...not that it helped because there was still nothing he could do about it.

So what if he'd put himself in the cold, taken himself away from all of them. So what. What was the difference? The results were the same.


End file.
